Wonderful clip! One of my favourite Fred & Gingers too, though Follow the Fleet's melancholy Let's Face the Music and Dance just beats it for me; Ginger's heavily beaded dress is almost a third person in the dance in that one, and if you look very carefully you can see it swipe Fred across the face as she twirls. Must have hurt!

There's a great book about Fred & Ginger by Hannah Hyam. It's essentially a personal response to their films (by Hannah's own admission she's not a dance/film academic) but it's a well researched, thoughtful, scholarly work nonetheless, written with an infectious love of the subject: 'amateur' in the very best possible sense!

Swingtime is my favorite Astaire-Rogers movie, and the gorgeous Never Gonna Dance is my favorite of their dance routines.There's a book, The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book, by Arlene Croce, that is a fascinating look at the construction of their movies, the choreography process, and has interesting tidbits (Rogers' feet were bloodied by all the dancing in over twenty takes of Never Gonna Dance, and the floor had to be polished between every take).

Poor Mr. Darcy might have apoplexy but I think Elizabeth would enjoy it. She says in the book she loves to dance. Fred and Ginger were the best at what they did and Lizzie and Darcy could have no better teachers.

May be if Mr. Darcy could have a partner like Ginger he would have danced more since he would not have been in want for a partner.Ginger certainly fits the category of Darcy in regards to a pair of fine eyes to gaze into.

In another vein, Fred Astaire was *good* at dancing. And he knew it. Some state it's his vanity than had him insist on showing his entire body head-to-toe (whenever possible) when dancing on film, but Wikipedia says it was a "film innovation" invented by him.

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A Polite Explanation

There’s a big difference in how we use history. But we’re equally nuts about it. To us, the everyday details of life in the past are things to talk about, ponder, make fun of -- much in the way normal people talk about their favorite reality show.

We talk about who’s wearing what and who’s sleeping with whom. We try to sort out rumor or myth from fact. We thought there must be at least three other people out there who think history’s fascinating and fun, too. This blog is for them.